May 22nd, 2019 
Jackson Murphy 
Chris Renaud has been with Illumination Entertainment from the very beginning, serving as co-director (with Pierre Coffin) on the studio’s first film, 2010’s Despicable Me. He also directed 2016’s The Secret Life of Pets and is now back with the sequel, which features a superhero storyline that brought Renaud back to his roots.
Jackson Murphy: When the first “Pets” opened to $100 million everybody went “Whoa.” What was your reaction?
Chris Renaud: Probably also “Whoa.” (laughs) Obviously I was very excited. I think that the concept clearly had people interested. I didn’t imagine it would be that big, but it certainly felt like we had something that people definitely identified with and wanted to see.
JM: And that relatability factor — so many people have pets. That really came across.
CR: Exactly. Exactly.
JM: And how soon after that opening weekend did discussions of a sequel begin?
CR: Well, if I’m being honest, we actually started it before that film opened. We were actually discussing ideas and working on things because it’s always good to be prepared. You never know what’s going to happen. We had been talking about some ideas before “Pets” even opened.
JM: Of course, so many people loved Patton Oswalt as Remy in “Ratatouille”. It’s great to hear him headlining an animated movie again. What makes him perfect for Max?
CR: He’s able to really inhabit the character. Even if you think about Remy — just that vocal styling. Patton does this thing: he can do a nervous chuckle, which is very much what Max… he’s a little nervous when he approaches the world or something new. He’s got a little bit of a neurotic quality. Patton’s voice is able to really capture that. It’s a different character than Remy, but there’s something about Patton’s voice that really lives in the character of Max.
JM: And there are a couple of key comedic moments where Oswalt’s timing is spot-on.
CR: Exactly. He’s able to take a line and deliver it in a way that gives it its maximum potential. We felt very early, once we started recording Patton for the character, that he had landed it and was making it his own.
JM: MAX-imum potential. I like that.
CR: I realized that. Wasn’t intentional, but I’ll take it.
JM: One of the main storylines is Kevin Hart’s Snowball becoming superhero Captain Snowball. What inspired you to go down this avenue — and with this character?
CR: I think a few things. I personally love, as does writer Brian Lynch, superheroes. I used to be a comic book artist for Marvel and DC, and Brian used to do some writing for comics. And obviously we are just in the zeitgeist. So when we were talking about what to do, clearly the great thing about Snowball is that he can be a deluded character — somebody who thinks he’s more than perhaps other people think of him – that he inhabits a bigger space than he does in reality. To take that character and have him misinterpret superhero pajamas: that all of a sudden he may be imbued with superhero powers just felt like a fun idea.
And also, in the first film, Snowball was kind of the villain — not a hard core villain but he definitely had a bone to pick as the leader of humanity with the flush pets. So, turning that around completely and making him a hero just felt like a great opportunity, even if he starts as a slightly deluded hero.
JM: So you worked at Marvel and DC. Maybe you’re the person who unites the fandom and the rivalry and the wars that have been going on between Marvel and DC.
CR: (laughs) You mean in the film business? I think that’s a little above my pay grade.
JM: But what do you think of it all?
CR: I think it’s clearly a fanbase that’s been in existence for some time. The DC Comics basically date from the late 30s and Marvel as we know it from the 60s. There’s a wealth of stories and now the technology available to bring them to life in sort of a dazzling way. In a lot of ways, the films have been able to take what worked about the comics and let go of what wouldn’t work in a film – and make their own version of these character stories in a great and satisfying way. Some more than others – but some of the recent efforts have been terrific.
JM: I cannot believe that Harrison Ford had never been asked to voice a character in an animated movie before.
CR: We felt extremely privileged and lucky that he agreed to work on this with us. When we were talking about the character [of Rooster], his was the name that popped up immediately. We were like, “Gosh – do you think he’ll do it?” Chris Meledandri had some connections, so we reached out and he agreed to do it. It was thrilling. I’m a child of the 70s and 80s, so to be working with Harrison Ford was truly a dream come true.
JM: Rooster is the wise new character — guidance for Max and Duke. What made you think of Ford right away?
CR: There’s a bit of city mouse/country mouse to the story and the idea that the perception of life if you’re living on a farm versus being in the city can be quite different. We needed a voice that kind of captured that contrast — no nonsense, very weighty in the way he delivers advice or sage wisdom. Who could capture that? A voice with grit. Something you just can’t argue with. Harrison Ford is who we all immediately thought of.
JM: And was it intimidating? Was it sort of that way in the booth, or did he find himself rather comfortable, even though it’s his first animated movie?
CR: Honestly I think he found himself very comfortable very early. He could not have been more professional and great to work with. I was a bit intimidated: “What’s it gonna be like? How is this gonna go?” Also because he hadn’t done animation before – sometimes you don’t know what an actor’s expectations are. But he… wanted to work with us to do the best performance possible and create a great character. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. And every version [of a line] that he did was terrific.
JM: Kids are gonna enjoy many aspects of this movie. Ford’s scenes will really impact parents and grandparents. Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat is one of the masters when it comes to scoring animated films. Was he really up to the challenge for crafting music to pair with that wild third act?
CR: Alexandre honestly can do anything. The guy is brilliant. If you look at what he’s done — even the heavily Japanese influenced “Isle of Dogs” he recently did — up through this, there’s nothing he can’t do. From a scoring point of view, it was a very interesting challenge compared to the first film. In the first film, we were really talking about a jazz-infused, big band, New York, Mancini themed score. And with this one, because we had so many different elements: like a haunted house, the circus, the country… how could we weave it together, play those tones of each storyline?
JM: Yeah — you’ve got three simultaneous stories. Did you feel like going into this that you wanted to amp things up story-wise?
CR: That was certainly a part of it. I think the other part was wanting to serve the characters that I think had the biggest part in the first film, which were Max and Snowball, of course, but also Gidget — beloved characters by the audience. How to serve them, keep them all alive, and, in addition, showcasing new characters like Rooster and Daisy — and serve some of the smaller role characters that people also love, like Chloe, Mel and Buddy. It’s quite a balancing act, and that was one of the main challenges of putting this film together: finding the way to have it all work together.
JM: One of the big trends lately is doing these nationwide early access screenings. And you’re teaming up with Fandango to screen “Pets 2” this Saturday in hundreds of theaters nationwide. How does it feel to unleash your movie two weeks early?
CR: I’m honestly very proud of the movie. It’s a sequel, which can be tricky. And the way I feel about it, and I hope the audience feels the same way, is that we didn’t just deliver a re-hash of the first film, but really tried to investigate and explore some new themes and ideas and take the characters to some new places in hopefully a story that, when it comes to its conclusion, is very satisfying. So I’m excited to have people see it early and hopefully spread the word.
JM: And next summer is the 10th anniversary of the release of the original “Despicable Me”, which you co-directed. But I remember seeing a teaser for it the summer before – so about 10 years ago now. How have you seen Illumination grow and evolve from that first teaser trailer to now?
CR: Well certainly one of the simplest, clearest things to point at is just technologically how we’ve advanced. And I mean that in the richness of the movies themselves. We try to do things for a certain budget, and that’s kind of our mantra that we try to follow. But with that film, the first one, we were really just trying to figure out what we were doing — how we would do it — and we were tailoring some of our creative solutions around our restrictions or limitations, in all honesty. If you notice, the city that Gru lives in, there’s hardly anybody around.
Now where we’ve gotten to is — yes, we try to keep our budgets manageable, but it’s hard to tell. We’ve been able to create a certain depth and richness in the visuals. The other thing is that there’s a lot more going on at Illumination. There are a lot more projects. There’s more things happening. With “Despicable Me” it was just one, and then we did “The Lorax” as just one. But now there’s a lot going on.
JM: I remember watching the first “Despicable” thinking the Minions were gonna change the game.
CR: When the first Minions trailer came out, there was a certain group that loved it, particularly kids, and then there was a certain group that was like, “What is this?” (laughs) The first trailer was Gru fighting Vector: more narrative, more plot-driven. The Minions one with the little cow thing was a standalone with weird little guys that nobody had ever seen. It raised a question of “What is this thing?” in a good way and a negative way depending on which side of the fence you were on… until people saw the movie.
JM: When I spoke with Kevin Hart about “Pets 2”, he seemed to be interested in my idea of taking the gang to his hometown of Philadelphia for “Pets 3”. What do you think about a “Pets” threequel set in Philly?
It was years ago. I was in my 20s. But… (laughs) who knows where we can go? That’s the fun part of these characters. With “The Secret Life”, you can kind of visit almost any location, and I think everything’s on the table as far as what we can do next.
CR: (laughs) The last time I was in Philadelphia I was in a car accident. So let’s wait and see.
JM: I hope everything’s been alright since then.
CR: (laughs) The last time I was in Philadelphia, I was in a car accident. So let’s wait and see.
JM: I hope everything’s been alright since then.
CR: It was years ago. I was in my 20s. But… (laughs) Listen, who knows where we can go. That’s the fun part of these characters. With “The Secret Life”, you can kind of visit almost any location, and I think anything’s kind of on the table as far as what we can do next.
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